Wood

As a response to the fast-paced city life, GrowMore is an urban gardening modular design with endless configurations to suit even the most unexpected of spaces. Designed by Sine Lindholm and Mads-Ulrik Husum, the modular building kit provides an opportunity for social interaction and locally grown vegetation, reminding people to pause and connect with nature.

Three M. Arch. candidates at Montana State University, Jonathan Chavez, Kimball Kaiser and Adam Shilling, won an Undergraduate Scholars Programresearch grant which they used to fund their design-build project: B.O.B., the Backyard Office Box. B.O.B. is a kit of parts which, when put together, create a 150-square-foot dwelling space. The design team, also known as Tr3s, wanted their project to be adaptable to a variety of sites and users. B.O.B. can function as an additional space to already existing projects or standalone as a temporary shelter.

With the common goal across their portfolio of enhancing the landscape, Camposaz has designed a tourist information pavilion in Roccamonfina, Italy. The wood pavilion is sited just off of a pedestrian path, overlooking the adjacent public park with stunning views of the nearby mountains, a driver in the design.

This modular design developed by the students of the Department of Architecture Sciences at Ryerson University proposes a public space to sit and relax that works as an extension of the walkway, appropriating and giving a new meaning to the parking spaces in the streets of Toronto.

The project, with a natural wave form, is built by a series of Accoya wood modules, which allow easy storage, reuse, and reconfiguration.

In December 2010, Manuel Peralta Lorca completed the work "Welcome Less Is More," a wooden reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House that was installed inside the Patricia Ready Gallery in Santiago, Chile. This September, a new version of this work will be mounted in the hall of Santiago's Museum of Contemporary Art, under the name "Home Less is More."

In the following story, the artist tells us about the process of reinterpreting this icon of modern architecture in wood and how a team of carpenters—who agreed to immerse themselves in the philosophy of Mies—was fundamental to completing the challenge.

Seeking to connect the traditions of carpentry and the prefabrication industry, Chilean practice abarca+palma have developed a modular house proposal made up of 10 different types of module, capable of forming 5 different house layouts.

The house is constructed in pine wood—using composite beams and pillars—with prefabricated SIP panels.

Since the first Hello Wood Project Village debuted in 2015, architecture, art and design students from all over the world have gathered together each summer in Hungary to imagine and build structures using innovative wood construction techniques. With each passing year, the village has grown more complex, with new students using the decisions of their predecessors to inform and evolve subsequent designs.

The 2017 edition has brought this exercise to its logical summit – exploring how the settlement could actually be inhabited by its builders. In doing so, participants created a village center consisting of 7 new structures containing spaces for sleeping, bathing, cooking, eating, viewing lectures and celebrating. New infrastructure including a village well and future solar panels also contribute to the village’s accountability and help to shape the relationships between the village’s structures.

“As architects, we all have an idea of what the ideal village is like, but what makes this programme interesting is that, once we are confronted with the actual needs of a community, constraints of the terrain, or the opinion of your neighbour, you need to be open to adapt,” said Johanna Muszbek, curator of Project Village.

See the 7 projects with descriptions from the designers, after the break.

Patkau Architects joins Yasodhara Ashram to cohost a unique weekend masterclass that uses the Temple of Light project as a case study for exploring the design of sacred space at the edge of architectural innovation. Together the group will explore architectural and fabrication practices through short lectures, reflection and meaningful dialogue with each other and invited guests from Patkau Architects, Spearhead and Yasodhara Ashram.

Penda, collaborating with wood consultants from CLT-brand Tmber, has unveiled the design of ‘Tree Tower Toronto,’ an 18-story timber-framed mixed-use residential skyscraper for Canada’s largest city. Drawing inspiration from the distinctly Canadian traditional modular construction, including Moshe Safdie’s iconic Habitat 67, the tower is envisioned as a new model of sustainable high-rise architecture that can establish a reconnect urban areas to nature and natural materials.

Designed by architect Rafael Iglesia for the home of the Del Grande family in Rosario, Argentina, this staircase is the result of a system of counteracting forces. The structure's wooden elements are held in place only by the friction and pressure that is produced between the pieces of wood that make up the system.

Developed by the POLOMADERA Program at the University of Concepción, the 3D Building Construction Solutions Catalog is a free tool that helps users design construction details for lightweight wooden structural systems.

Though created with the intention of meeting new standards soon to be implemented nationally in Chile (and therefore in Spanish), the catalog was developed jointly with international experts from the Wood Construction Institute at the Holzbau Institut in Germany, and thus incorporates best practices that are applicable around the world.

Invis Mx2 is a device that allows you to connect screws and bolts easily without leaving any holes. Its cordless screwdriver works through a MiniMag rotary magnetic field, which adapts to any conventional drill, allowing to generate detachable connections with a tensile force of 250 kg per connector.

The system is designed to be applied to wooden elements and ceramic materials, allowing the construction of furniture, railings, coatings, stairs, among others.

This article is part of our series "Material in Focus", where we ask architects to share with us their creative process through the choice of materials that define important parts of the construction of their buildings.

Alagoas House used neutral colors and furnishings in order to let local craftsmanship stand out. Some of the strategies that guided the projects included using works by regional artists and decorating with repurposed everyday objects. We spoke with architect João Duayer of Tavares Duayer Arquitetura to learn more about the choice of materials and the determining role that they played in his concept for this project.

The United States’ first mass-timber highrise (defined by Emporis Building Standards as a building with an architectural height of 115-328 feet, or between 12 and 40 floors) has been granted planning permission, allowing construction on the landmark project to begin. Located in downtown Portland, Oregon, the building known as Framework will cap out at 12 floors and approximately 128 feet, ushering in a new era of tall building construction in the US.

Continuing the ever-increasing growth of timber construction architecture in North America and around the world, Carbon12’s recent topping out has resulted in its newly achieved status as the tallest mass timber building in the United States. Situated in Portland and designed by PATH Architecture, the 8-storey condominium is an example of the cost-effectiveness and labor sensitivity of engineered wood products while helping regenerate Oregon’s local timber industry.

With a growing population and rapid development, much of recent focus has been on Portland’s city center, in an effort to preserve the existing natural landscape that surrounds the urban areas. Built of prefabricated cross-laminated timber panels and glu-lam beams around a steel core, Carbon12’s hybrid construction aids the city’s densification, given its off-site construction and quick assembly that help both reduce costs and respond to residential needs.

Set in a valley located 45 minutes west of Santiago de Chile, an elementary timber shed by Josep Ferrando and Diego Baloian seeks to unhinge the division between vertical and horizontal architectural elements. The scheme is the result of a private commission to build a wooden shed on a family-owned plot in the town of Curacaví, halfway between the Chilean capital and the coastal town of Valparaíso.

Drawing heavy inspiration from vernacular canopies which historically dotted the landscape of rural Chile, the scheme seeks to create a central family meeting point amongst a vast 2 hectare plot.

An environmentally-concious material response by Lukkaroinen Architects, the structural design for the Pudasjärvi Wood Campus in northern Finland highlights the potential of large-scale structural timber.

The project features a primary structure of assembled logs and three types of non-traditional pillars, specially constructed in laminated wood for different areas.